San Antonio welcomes Wuxi delegation

The city of San Antonio staged a mini-version of a White House state dinner Thursday evening to the delegation from Wuxi, China that arrived this week to sign a Sister Cities agreement. The evening was in reciprocation to similar hospitality shown by Wuxi during earlier visits by San Antonio delegations.

The Wuxi delegation already had toured the South Texas Medical Center, visited the River Walk and the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo and made an appearance at City Council’s Thursday session.

The mayors then ceremoniously signed the Sister Cities agreement, and the 200 invited guests in attendance then moved to the River Room for an evening of dinner and entertainment.

While dining on beef loin, stuffed grilled quail and Fredericksburg peach cobbler, the audience was treated to a Chinese flute performance by Gary Wang and a song, “Reed Flower,” by Chinese vocalist Lina Cunningham.

To cap the evening, the Wilburn Brothers sang country-western classics that included “Waltz Across Texas” and “On the Road Again.” Parts of the performances were filmed by a representative from a Wuxi television station.

Gifts, of course, were exchanged between the mayors. Castro’s final gift to Zhu was a cowboy hat.

“Next time you come back,” Castro said, “we’ll give you the boots.”

Zhu reportedly developed a fondness for guacamole during his San Antonio visit, although that was not on the menu Thursday night.

Wuxi, with a population of more than 6 million, is San Antonio’s ninth sister city.